Melissa A. Berman

Melissa is the founding president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family in 2002. She is a second-term Candid trustee, having joined Foundation Center’s board in 2015.

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors helps donors create effective philanthropy. It is one of the world’s leading philanthropic advisory, grantmaking, research, and project management services. It annually manages or facilitates over $400 million in giving to more than 25 countries.

Melissa has been a guest lecturer at universities across the world, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, IMD, Sciences Po, Oxford, Sun-Yat Sen, and Beijing Normal universities. A widely recognized expert in philanthropy, she has been profiled in the New York Times and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her views are featured in the Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has been interviewed on the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, NPR, BBC Radio, CNBC-TV, and Bloomberg TV.

An adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Business School, Melissa is also a director/trustee of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the Marshall Center for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School.

Melissa holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.